Users of online social networking systems often use such systems to transmit messages to other users and to post content to such systems for sharing with other users. For example, the Facebook social networking system provides each registered user of the system with a personal page, known as a “wall” or “timeline,” which displays a variety of information, such as personal information about the user, content posted by the user, and content posted by other users within the user's network on Facebook.
One of the primary goals of Facebook and other social networking systems is to facilitate the sharing of a wide variety of content among users in a wide variety of ways. One of the original reasons that users began using social networking systems was that they provided a convenient, user-friendly, easy way to engage in such content sharing, without requiring users to have knowledge of HTML or web programming, and without requiring users to visit different sites or use different mechanisms to share different kinds of content with other users.
For example, a user may use Facebook to transmit a message to one or a specified set of other users, in which case the message is only delivered and viewable by the specified user(s). As another example, a user may post content on the user's wall, thereby creating a “wall post,” in which case anyone who is within the user's social network on Facebook (i.e., anyone who is a “friend” of the user on Facebook) may view the wall post. Wall posts may include, for example, text, images (such as digital photographs), audio, video, hyperlinks, and combinations thereof.
Whereas in the past users might have used email to send messages to individual friends, blogs to post short messages to the public or a wider group of friends, photo sharing sites (such as Flickr or Snapfish) to share photos, and so on. As a result of this power, flexibility, and ease of use, many users now solely use a social networking site such as Facebook to perform all of these functions through a single account and a single unified user interface. Another benefit of using a single social networking site to perform all of these functions is that all of the content shared by the user, and some or all of the content shared with the user by others, is available for viewing in a single location, such as the user's Facebook wall.
Many organizations, including for-profit and non-profit companies, government agencies, universities, and departments also use Facebook and other social networking sites to communicate with their members and to market and sell their products and services. Such organizations often take advantage of the various mechanisms for sharing content described above. In addition, such organizations often use the various kinds of advertising that Facebook offers to market their products and services. Organizations post information about upcoming and existing products and encourage their customers and potential customers to post comments about the organization and its products on the company's wall. Organizations also sponsor contests, quizzes, special offers, and other promotional activities on social networking sites. These and other activities are intended to create interest in the company's commercial offerings by encouraging users of social networking sites to engage in online conversations about those offerings and to share content related to those offerings with each other through the social networking sites.
As the preceding description makes clear, many companies and individuals now rely significantly or even solely on social networking sites for engaging in a wide variety of communication with their friends, colleagues, customers, and potential customers. Both the volume and variety of such communication has increased significantly since the early days of online social networking systems. As a result, one problem that organizations face is organizing and tracking their content on online social networking systems, including both content posted by the organization and content posted by users outside the organization in connection with content posted by the organization. Another problem that organizations face is generating reports about their content on online social networking systems, and how effectively (or ineffectively) such content affects the company's reputation and sales.
What is needed, therefore, are improved techniques for managing content in online social networking systems.